While the initial snapshot is normally used to initialize a subscription, subscriptions to publications can be initialized without using a snapshot, provided that the schema and initial data are already present at the subscriber.

Important:

If there is activity on a database published using transactional replication between the time data and schema are copied to the Subscriber and the time at which the subscription is manually initialized, changes resulting from this activity might not be replicated to the Subscriber.

Subscriptions can be initialized manually using replication stored procedures.

At the Publisher on the publication database, execute sp_addmergesubscription. Specify the name of the database at the Subscriber containing the published data for @subscriber_db, a value of push for @subscription_type, and a value of none for @sync_type.